The following appeared on the Portland Press Herald editorial page:

"With COVID vaccines still in short supply, the state should be making every effort to get the shots to the places where they will do the most good.

"That’s why the first phase went to frontline health care workers and residents of nursing homes, groups that are among those at highest risk of becoming infected.

"But another group of vulnerable Mainers is going to have to wait until June or later to get a chance to be immunized. They are the approximately 3,000 adults and youths who are incarcerated in the state’s prisons and county jails.

"Inmates are waiting to be vaccinated even though the two largest COVID outbreaks in the state have been at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, and the York County Jail in Alfred. Even inmates who would qualify for a vaccine in the first phase because of their age or underlying medical condition will have to wait because it would be inefficient to vaccinate small numbers of older and sicker inmates."

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